When Someday, Someday Maybe landed on my desk, I opened it with apprehension. According to the cover quote from Diane Keaton, the book from the star of Gilmore Girls and Parenthood promised to be “warm and funny, charming and smart”, but a book about a twenty-something wannabe actress trying to make it in the nineties sounded like, at best, a poorly disguised memoir or, at worst, a misguided attempt at leveraging on a TV star’s fame to push a bad chicklit..

WRONG!

The woman we fell in love with in Bad Santa has written an entertaining, authentic, engaging read that I loved from beginning to end. Rather than labouring through the read, I mourned the last page, reluctant to leave the protagonist’s messy, dramatic and hopeful world.

Someday, Someday, Maybe is the story of Franny Banks, an unemployed actress who has six months left trying to make it in New York until her self-imposed deadline, after which she will move to Chicago, take up a ‘normal’ job and marry her high school sweetheart.

Despite screwing up her monologue in her acting class showcase, she finally manages to land an agent, and it seems she might achieve her goal – she’s getting auditions and callbacks, she’s able to pay her rent and the cute, talented guy from class is showing interest. But in the acting world, nothing is as it seems, and soon Franny is jobless, penniless and rudderless, wondering how she can make the rent and if she’s been fooling herself all along.

I loved following Franny’s story and could completely empathise with her; I saw myself in Franny Banks, from her wild curly hair to her addiction to bad men and fad diets. Franny makes bad, totally realistic choices but after the inevitable fall out, picks herself up, dusts herself off and has at it again.

It is this spunk, and the wit and charm with which her story is told, that endeared me to Franny and made me root for her right until the end, which, while not perfectly wrapped up, left me hopeful that she’d be alright. I loved her, and I loved this book.

There are few things in the world that Romance Specialist Haylee Nash loves more than a quiet reading giggle – you know, that silent shoulder-shake you get while reading a particularly funny part of a book when in a public place. Haylee would like to thank Lauren Graham for giving her several of these while taking public transport home after a particularly long day at work. If you’re ever in Sydney, Lauren, Haylee would like to buy you a sparkling wine.